The National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD, Arlington, VA) says its annual productivity survey of member firms shows lower overall profit ratios despite stronger sales in 2012. Distributors primarily involved in liquids posted a higher profit ratio, while the figure fell for firms focused on the factory-pack segment and distributors with a balanced product mix. NACD says the performance ratio “before-tax return on net worth” for 2012 was 30.0% for the liquids segment, or distributors with more than 75% of sales from liquids...